Out of nowhere, Valve has announced the Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame, all set to release in early 2026. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Valve is trying to step into the console ring to give Sony and Microsoft a run for their money, and I’m here for it.

What is the Steam Machine?

^{Source: Rock Paper Shotgun}

The Steam Machine is essentially a pre-built mini-PC that’s roughly 6 cubic inches in size. Normally, an announcement for a new mini-PC wouldn’t be newsworthy, but the Steam Machine comes with SteamOS installed. Yes, the same SteamOS that’s on the Steam Deck, providing a console-like experience for PC gaming.

Along with the Steam Machine, Valve also revealed the Steam Controller, which has two trackpads and programmable back buttons, and the Steam Frame, their VR headset, which runs on SteamOS and lets you download and play games without being connected to other hardware, like your PC.

^{Source: Valve}

What we know about the Steam Machine

Specs

While Valve hasn’t revealed the pricing or a firm release date yet, the company did release the Tech Specs for all of its newly announced hardware on its store page.

^{Source: Valve}

At face value, the GPU has a little less power than a base PS5, but it has a much better CPU and is likely to provide a boost in framerate while providing a similar image quality to Sony’s flagship console. However, the 8GB of VRAM might be a bit too low for the current AAA games being released, despite Valve’s claims that this will be able to handle your entire Steam Library.

Of course, this is all speculation, and the Steam Machine’s page does say that some specifications are subject to change, so hopefully they can give it a bit more VRAM, but I’m willing to bet the custom CPU and GPU are set in stone.

Swapable panels

For a few brief moments in the reveal video, we caught a glimpse of the Steam Machine with different panels for users to customize the front of the device.

^{Source: Valve}

Although I’d have to say my personal favorite panel has already been confirmed by Valve not to be available for sale. For some reason, Valve felt the need to tease us by showing off an attachable E Ink display that they used for testing. If anyone smarter than me wants to make this available to the masses, I’m sure that there’d be plenty of people willing to buy it.

^{Source: Gamers Nexus}

Upgradable SSD

For those of us who want to upgrade the internal storage of the Steam Machine, you can open the bottom and install your own M.2 drive.

^{Source: Gamers Nexus}

A massive cooling system

The Steam Machine’s product page states that it runs cool and “whisper-quiet”, even when running the most demanding games. It’s easy to brush off such claims, but after seeing what Valve’s cooling system looks like, I believe it.

^{Source: VGT Gaming News}

What’s the point of the Steam Machine?

On paper, the Steam Machine might come off as an over-hyped mini-PC. But if we take a step back to look at the big picture, we can start to understand the potential that this device truly has.

PC gaming meets console simplicity

^{Source: Valve}

PC gaming has always had two big hurdles that people had to overcome: building a PC and downloading all the software and drivers needed to play games. You might not think that these are huge barriers, but these tasks are quite daunting and time-consuming for people who aren’t familiar with building PCs and want a plug-and-play experience. You could argue that building a PC isn’t even necessary since you can buy pre-builts, which is a valid argument since the Steam Machine is exactly that, but you’re still left with setting up the drivers and software. Even when you have everything set up exactly how you want, it’s only a matter of time until a Windows or driver update breaks something, and you have to spend precious gaming time searching for a fix.

The Steam Machine bypasses both of these issues. The device is pre-built, and SteamOS is managed by Valve as an immutable OS. The company controls the OS and drivers, and can test everything itself before pushing out any updates. In fact, Valve already has a proven track record of doing this with the Steam Deck. Combine this with an easy-to-navigate UI, and you have a home console experience on a PC.

All the exclusives

If we’re being honest with ourselves, the main reason why people buy one console over another is for the library of exclusive games. Nintendo understands this very well, which is a major factor why it’s thriving right now, but Sony and Microsoft have been taking a much different approach with their “exclusives.”

Due to the rising cost of AAA game development, long development cycles, and shareholders’ never-ending hunger for more money, AAA games need to be on as many platforms as possible to make their return on investment. This means nowadays, Xbox and Playstation games are on PC. You can hop on Steam right now and find God of War Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Tsushima, and other Playstation titles right along with Halo Master Chief Collection, Gears of War 5, Fable, and plenty of other Xbox games.

Gaming on a PC is like having a Playstation and Xbox rolled up into one console. Sure, you don’t get access to all the exclusives of each platform, but it’s definitely more than enough to justify buying a Steam Machine instead of a Playstation and Xbox.

Play how you want to play

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When you game on a Playstation or Xbox, you’re stuck with the controllers that are compatible with that system, but on PC, you can use any controller you like. You can play Halo with a Dualshock 4 controller. You can play Ratchet and Clank with an Xbox controller. You can play Final Fantasy XIV with a keyboard and mouse. If you have a favorite controller that you know like the back of your hand, you can simply connect it to the Steam Machine and use it there. You’re not limited to one controller or control scheme on a PC.

Full control and customization

While all of the simplicity is at the forefront of the Steam Machine, it’s still a mini-PC running SteamOS, which is built on top of Arch Linux. You can install mods for your games. You can load other launchers, like Battle.net and the Epic Games launcher. You can download emulators and play anything from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Switch. You can even uninstall SteamOS and put Windows 11 on your Steam Machine if you really want to. It’s a crazy concept these days, but you get to have full control over the device you bought and paid for.

Steam Sales

^{Source: Memebase}

Do I even need to explain this one? Sadly, the answer is yes. While PC gamers already know what Steam sales are like, people who only game on consoles might not know just how insane the sales can get. There’s nothing quite like buying a dozen or more games for the price of one.

What impact could Valve’s new hardware have on gaming?

Similar to how the Steam Deck blurred the lines between handhelds and PCs, Valve might end up doing the same thing for consoles.

^{Source: Valve}

Looking back at it now, Valve was playing 4D Chess with the Steam Deck. No, it didn’t sell a crazy amount of units, and it certainly wasn’t the “Switch killer” that tons of people claimed it would be, but it did make gaming on Linux viable. With SteamOS and Proton, people who played video games on Linux were no longer second-class citizens to gamers on Windows. At the time, it looked like Valve was doing a lot of unnecessary work by building its own Linux OS while creating tools to make games work for it when the company could’ve just used Windows and saved itself the headache, but Valve was clearly playing the long game.

Valve had to do all of that to create and fine-tune SteamOS, laying the groundwork for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame. Valve wasn’t interested in selling hardware for the sake of selling hardware; it wanted to build its own gaming ecosystem that didn’t rely on anyone else. The end result is that handheld gamers get to experience what it’s like to have full control over their device while also enjoying PC games and massive Steam sales.

If Valve can give console gamers that same experience, we might end up with a lot of people skipping out on the next Playstation and Xbox, and they’ll be the first to tell you, “Just get a Steam Machine, bro.”

Steam Hardware

Coming in 2026